GCSE Computer Science: OCR or AQA?

GCSE Computer Science: OCR or AQA?

I thought I should share my limited experience of the two GCSE Computer Science courses that many UK schools are considering for first delivery in September 2012.

At the start of this academic year (September 2011) we introduced OCR GCSE Computing at Perins. Since then, the AQA GCSE in Computer Science has been accredited.

I will add more to this blog post as I explore in more detail the differences and similarities between these qualifications, but for now here are links to specimen examination papers. Something that both courses have in common is a 90 minute terminal exam, and I think it is worth looking at these papers to get an overview of the topics that students will need to understand:

Can you remember how to convert denary to binary? I couldn’t when I first looked at this paper 12 months ago (and nor could many of my friends who are Computer Science graduates and industry specialists!) – but now I am comfortable that both of my classes would get full marks on a similar question.